Chapter 31

1 November, 1958 Blackpool Abbey, Upper Flagley, Yorkshire

Dorcas pushed Cal up the stairs, using her other hand to hold up her skirts as she climbed. She looked forward to finally ripping the itchy wig from her head and shedding every stitch of confining material. How did people wear this stuff on a daily basis?

She left Jonas and Cherry to say goodbye to the guests.

When the bedroom door was securely latched behind Cal, Dorcas turned angry eyes on him.

"What possessed you?" she asked exasperatedly, flinging the wig onto the dressing table.

"Where were you earlier?" Cal asked, rounding on her. He was still seething, appearing not to hear her question.

Dorcas sputtered. "This has nothing to do with me. Why did you hit him?"

"Of course, defend him. I'm not surprised," Cal spat, tearing at the knot in the cravat around his neck. He growled in frustration at the unyielding garment.

Dorcas stood before him and calmly reached up to untie it. He smacked her hands away at first, but capitulated when she fixed him with a direct and challenging stare.

"I'm not defending him. What did he say to make you pummel him like that?"

She concentrated on untying the knot and his hands reflexively found her waist. He slipped his fingers around the clasps at the back of her dress and undid them one by one.

"He wanted to remind me that you were mine to lose. That I'd better be careful. You were throwing yourself at him. He said all he had to do was ask and you'd be his again."

Dorcas's eyes flicked up to Cal's as she loosened the cravat and pushed his jacket from his broad shoulders. She felt the color drain from her face.

"And you believed him?"

"Where were you earlier? Were you with him?"

Dorcas stepped out of his arms and turned to slip the dress off. She tossed it over the dressing screen, pulling her wand from the concealed pocket of the dress before she turned back to him.

He surveyed her in the linen stays and lacey knickers. She still wore her heels.

It wasn't lost on her how similar this moment was to the one she'd planned for him to come home to almost a month ago. The realization made her sad and unsure.

"We talked, yes," Dorcas offered. "But I didn't throw myself at him, if that's what you think."

She pushed Cal back onto the bed so that she did not have to totter on her toes to heal the cut above his right eye.

"Mostly I was in the library talking to my uncle's portrait," Dorcas said.

Cal's shoulders slumped a little in relief.

Dorcas felt bad about the way she'd tempered the truth. Had she flashed her assets to get something from Tom? Maybe. That didn't mean that she wanted him to take her right there in the middle of the veranda. And she couldn't be responsible for Tom's interpretation of events.

Cal was being less than forthright these days as well, she reminded herself.

"Did it occur to you that he wanted to catch you off guard so that you would let down the defenses in your mind?" Dorcas asked as she healed his cut.

His hands were on her backside, massaging gently.

"No," he admitted. He bent and kissed her neck, pulling her close so that she was nestled between his legs.

His blood was up after the fight. And, Dorcas thought, he probably felt he had something to prove to himself after Tom's words had nettled him.

"Well, that may have been his purpose in riling you to begin with. Well done," Dorcas said dryly.

She turned in his arms. "Get me out of this torture device," she asked, pulling her hair over her shoulder to give him access to the laces of the stays.

"Gladly," Cal said, working on the laces at once.

She felt a blessed relief when the binding garment was loosened and finally fell to the floor.

Cal's fingers traced the tender spot against her ribs where the steel boning had rubbed. Then he kissed her between her shoulder blades and his hands glided to her stomach before traveling up to the heavy swell of her breasts.

He squeezed, causing her to arch her back.

He sighed into her skin, bringing gooseflesh to every exposed surface.

She turned in his arms once more to face him.

The evidence of Cal's arousal was straining the fabric of the too-tight breeches he wore.

Dorcas tried to search his mind even as her fingers furiously worked at the buttons of his shirt. She became frustrated at the reluctance of the garment to come undone, mirroring the frustration that her mind met at the impediment guarding his mind.

Maybe because she could not rip away the barrier that kept his thoughts from her, she violently tore his shirt open, sending buttons flying

Cal was alternately tugging at the fastenings of his own trousers and pulling at the waistband of her panties, unable to decide which garment was giving him the most grief in that instant.

Dorcas felt her mouth turn up at the corners as she watched her adorable husband.

"Argh!" he finally growled in resentment.

Laughing, Dorcas pushed him back on the bed. She kicked off the heels and shed her last item of clothing, climbing on top of him, feeling the satisfying confirmation of his desire for her.

"I'm yours, Cal. I don't want anyone else," Dorcas said, tracing a finger slowly across his flank. She felt a thrill watching his muscles spasm at her touch. "Do you believe me?"

"Yes," he gasped. His fingers dug into her thighs.

She wanted to torture him more, remembering the agonizing hours she'd spent alone, waiting for him to come home. He'd chosen work over her then.

He wouldn't be so foolish as to make the wrong choice again, she assured herself.

Lifting herself off of him slightly, she unfastened his costume breeches. He was immediately relieved, grabbing her hips with a heavy sigh.

:::

She heard the wails of her baby and instinctively rose, trying to make as little noise as possible. She didn't want to disturb Cal. He was so good about getting up in the night and letting her sleep.

Leaning down, she scooped up Cal's discarded shirt from the pile of clothes they'd left on the floor and slipped it over her shoulders, buttoning it unevenly in places where some buttons were missing.

She remembered how she wouldn't acknowledge Ryann in the first few weeks of her life and regretted that time she'd lost with her oldest child.

As exhausted as she was constantly, these moments she spent with her baby were precious. She loved holding her boy in the small hours of the morning and hearing him coo against her. He was absolutely perfect.

She blinked, coming out of her musings. With a jolt, she realized nothing that her eyes landed on seemed familiar to her. This was not her house.

But then where was her baby? She had heard him crying.

She sped up her pace, her bare feet padding coldly down the hall.

Zigzagging from one open door to another, glancing in each, looking and listening out for Ben.

"Ben?" she called.

"Dorcas?"

She turned to see Cal, standing in the hallway. He was hurriedly tying the ties on his pajama bottoms as he fixed her with a fuzzy and confused look.

"Cal, he's missing!" she said, rushing to him and grabbing his hand.

"Who's missing?" Cal asked in confusion.

Dorcas started to sob as she thought of any number of things that could have happened to her precious little boy.

"Ben, Cal! I can't find him," Dorcas cried.

Cal pulled her to his chest and tried to quieten her. He stroked her hair and wrapped his arms around her.

Dorcas became frustrated. He was solid and unmoving and she pushed hard against him. If he would not help her, she would find her baby on her own.

"Cal, I have to find him!"

The pained expression on his face brought her up short. She stopped struggling.

"Dorcas, he's dead," Cal said gently.

She blinked. Her eyes searched his face for meaning. She couldn't make the words make sense in her mind.

"Ben died, my love. He's not here. It was just a dream."

Dorcas's eyes fell from Cal's face to the darkened corridor around her. It was her family's home. They were in Jonas's home. She remembered the party; the fight.

She remembered that her baby was dead.

"I know," she finally said in a small voice. "I know he is. But for a moment I thought he was here. I thought he was alive."

As she spoke the words, the realization sank in. She felt the familiar sensation of being swept under by a wave. Tears began to trace a well worn path down her cheeks.

Dorcas didn't want to be awake any more. She didn't want to be conscious. She didn't want to be alive.

"He's gone, Cal," Dorcas cried.

She felt like she didn't have bones. She felt as if she wasn't made up of solid matter.

If Cal didn't have his arms around her, she would have collapsed right to the floor. He caught her and hoisted her up into his arms.

"Is everything alright, Cal?" Anneliese's voice asked somewhere in the distance.

"Everything's fine," he reassured her.

"Cal, I want my baby. I want to hold my baby," Dorcas sobbed.

Cal breathed in a sharp breath and held it.

"I know you do, my love. I'm so sorry that you can't."

She was tucked back into bed, but the sheets felt thorny. She was so uncomfortable. She felt like she had a weight pressing on her chest. She couldn't pull enough air into her lungs.

"Drink this," Cal said, handing her a dark blue liquid. She knew this potion. It was a Sleeping Draught. She gulped it eagerly, wanting the oblivion that its deep cerulean color promised.

Cal lay beside her and kissed her forehead, folding her up in his embrace.

"Try to sleep."

:::

15 May, 1941 Black Lake, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

The sun shone down from a cloudless sky. The day seemed caught between a remembrance of winter and a forward glance to summer. There was still a slight chill in the breeze. It made Dorcas's bare toes tingle when she drew them from the water.

Cherry and Anneliese were wading in the shallows of the lake, robes discarded, stockings and shoes in a heap on the shore.

Dorcas sat next to the bundle of belongings, trying to entice the sun to warm her feet.

In the deeper recesses of the lake, Rubeus was trying to coax a Kelpie to the surface. Dorcas was in doubt that any such creature existed in this particular body of water. But, the school and its grounds had surprised her before, she supposed.

"What are you going to take for your elective class next year?" Cherry asked, sifting through the contents in the shallows of the lake with her toes.

"Well," Anneliese considered carefully. "Divination sounds intriguing. Perhaps I might get more use out of Ancient Runes, though."

"I'm taking Muggle Studies," Cherry pronounced confidently.

Dorcas had agonized over this very decision since forms were handed out to rising third year students yesterday at breakfast. The thought of choosing one new class that would direct the entire trajectory of her studies for the next five years, and after that her career path, was daunting.

She'd asked Tom how he'd made his decision the year before.

He explained that he'd been given two slots to fill with new electives in his schedule last year. He'd chosen Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. Both classes, in his estimation, were challenging and worthwhile.

Dorcas was leaning toward one or the other, but was having a hard time choosing. She wondered why students in the grade above her had been offered two openings in their schedule, but this year, only one.

"I'm thinking about Arithmancy and Ancient Runes," Dorcas mused.

"I'm goin' ter pick Care o' Magical Creatures when I ge' the choice nex' year," Rubeus chimed in.

Dorcas smiled at him. That was an obvious choice.

"You should take Ancient Runes. We'll be in another class together that way," Anneliese said as she stooped to gather another shell from the lake's bottom.

"Ohh! Take Muggle Studies with me, Dory!" Cherry coaxed, pouting prettily.

"Cherry, I live Muggle Studies when I'm not at school. I don't need to know how to blend in or learn vocabulary like "cinema" or "electricity". I'm going to take a subject that will help me later in life."

"Too bad we can't have three new classes to fill," Anneliese said. "That way you could take the two you want, Dory. And we could take Muggle Studies as a lark!"

"I wonder why we can't take at least two," Dorcas thought aloud. "Tom is taking two new classes this year."

"That's because Tom is a boy, Dory," Cherry pointed out as if Dorcas was simple.

Dorcas blinked. "Why does that matter?"

"All the boys get to take two extra classes beginning in their third year. Girls get one," Cherry explained, kicking out playfully to splash Anneliese with her wake.

Dorcas sat up. What nonsense was Cherry speaking right now?

"Why don't the girls get to pick the same number?" Dorcas asked. She gritted her teeth waiting for a response, wanting to snap at Cherry, who was distractedly splashing and dodging splashes from Anneliese.

Anneliese was the one who finally answered her.

"Because girls have to take a required class starting in their third year called Domestic Arts. That takes up one of the new slots in your schedule."

"Yep!" Cherry replied, splashing Anneliese and then Rubeus. "So we'll all have an extra class together next year anyway! But I still want you to take Muggle Studies with me," she said.

"Domestic Arts?" Dorcas said, crinkling her nose.

"Uh-huh," Anneliese said, carefully picking her way back to the shore. "I think it will be interesting to know how to magically cook and clean. It will be a very useful class."

"I'm not taking that," Dorcas said adamantly.

She couldn't imagine taking a class where she learned how to make the perfect meal or how to polish silverware with magic. She was a passable cook and could clean her own Poplar flat in less than a half hour. All without magic. She thought this would be a colossal waste of time and space in her schedule. As much of a waste as Muggle Studies.

Cherry appeared as if she wanted to present Dorcas with an argument, but Rubeus had come up behind her, turned and dropped as if onto his bed at the end of a long day. The resultant tidal wave engulfed Cherry and drenched her.

What she'd planned to say to Dorcas was long forgotten as the bedraggled redhead pulled her wand from her knot of hair on the top of her head and aimed it at him.

"Alright, Rubeus Hagrid! You don't know who you're messing with!" She aimed her wand at the giant boy who floated on his back next to her laughing. "Levicorpus!"

Rubeus was hauled by the spell out of the water by one ankle.

Dorcas looked on, impressed. It was difficult enough magic to hoist a normal-sized person into the air. Rubeus Hagrid was not a normal-sized person.

She floated him out further into the lake. Almost as far as Bowtruckle Island.

"Finite!" she said, as the enchantment broke and Rubeus plunged head first into the lake.

:::

"Did you know that boys at this school are given a distinct advantage over the girls in subjects offered?"

Tom flipped the page and continued reading without looking up as Dorcas took her seat beside him in the library.

She stared at the side of his head, unblinkingly determined.

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to apologize for being born male?" Tom said, his eyes scanning the words in front of him.

Dorcas puffed out her cheeks, considering his words before exhaling.

"Well, you have to admit that there is a bit of undeserved privilege where your gender is concerned," Dorcas returned evenly.

Tom laughed and laid his book aside.

"Now there's a word I've never heard used to describe me before! Privileged, eh?"

Dorcas shrugged. "In a sense, yes. You are not being shoehorned into some class on how to be a good wife and mother."

"I'd be hopeless as a wife and mother!" Tom joked.

"Be serious!" Dorcas commanded as she kicked the leg of the chair he was sitting in. "I want the same opportunities to learn magic as you have. Why don't I deserve that?"

"Let's not start talking about what people deserve. Did my mum deserve to die while my wastrel of a father still gets to draw breath? Does your uncle deserve to go around fitting all over the place? No. But we play the cards we're dealt and, if we're lucky we can make a go of it."

Dorcas was taken aback at Tom's cavalier philosophy on life. She wanted to argue with him, to challenge his beliefs. But she held her tongue.

"What are you going to do about it?" Tom asked, leveling a direct gaze at her.

"Do about it?" Dorcas asked.

"Besides grumbling about how unfair it is to be a girl, what are you going to do about it?"

"I'll go talk to Professor Lin about it."

As Dorcas thought about it, she felt assured that Professor Lin would see her side of things and allow her to drop the Happy Homemaker class for some serious magical studies.

"That's the spirit!" Tom said, pulling his book back in front of him.

"Thanks!" Dorcas said, standing.

"I know I'm just a privileged male and so my opinion doesn't really matter, but you're the cleverest student in your year. She's bound to see the sense in letting you out of that class."

"I hope so!" she smiled, encouraged by his words. She kissed his cheek. "And for the record, I think you'd make a terrific wife and mother, Tom Riddle."

Tom laughed and winked at her as she gathered her things and left the library again.

:::

7 November, 1958 Watermead, Aylesbury

Dorcas's routine now consisted of getting up and showering before Cal was out of bed. As he got up and busied himself getting ready for work, she made him breakfast. When she saw him off to work she dedicated three hours in her office to journaling her memories. If she found anything that was promising, she might pull the Pensieve out and dive into one or two of them. Then she would go to the market or run other errands. Sometimes, she would have to invent an errand. Then she would come home and spend an hour or two more inventorying memories. After that, she rewarded herself with an indulgent sit in the park where she could have a cathartic cry and a think about the different ways in which she would make Stephen Muybridge pay for killing her baby.

She was no longer laboring under any sort of pretense that she was some happy housewife, but she had only two objectives to accomplish everyday when she woke up.

One was to try to find and lift the memory spells that were damaging her brain.

The other was to make Cal's burdens as light as possible. Most days he was at the hospital for twelve hours or more. She imagined the thrill of the weighty life and death decisions that he made on a daily basis and struggled not to be jealous.

Once she'd figured out this gordian knot that was her mental trauma, she would be able to return to work as well. And she would be able to have Wren back. Everything would fall into place.

A pressure behind her announced Cal's presence as he slipped his hand into her robe. The feel of his hand on her bare skin thrilled her and almost made her spill her coffee.

"Breakfast is on the table," she said, to cover her surprise.

"I like what I'm having right here," Cal responded, nibbling at her ear.

Dorcas set her coffee down and tried to swat his hand aside. "You're going to be late, Healer Meadowes. And what sort of excuse will you give for your tardiness?"

Cal placed a firm hand on each of her hips and spun her around to face him.

"I was attending to some urgent business at home?" Cal answered, trying the excuse out.

"Urgent business?" Dorcas said, her voice hitching as Cal slipped a hand between her thighs. "Well you might as well come right out and say you were fucking your wife," Dorcas laughed.

Dorcas's foul language got Cal hot. He was dependable like that.

Cal sighed against her lips. His breathing was becoming ragged with desire.

His hands gripped her backside and hoisted her onto the kitchen counter. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him closer to her, untying his tie as he undid the sash holding her robes closed.

"Shall we take this to the bedroom?" Cal asked huskily.

"Healer Meadowes, you can take me wherever you like," Dorcas responded in a coquettish voice.

Cal glanced at his rapidly cooling plate of eggs and toast laid out on the dining room table. Dorcas thought for a moment as she saw him glance at his untouched food that he would suddenly be reminded of his busy day and set her aside.

Instead, he lifted her into his arms and, kicking the dining room chairs out of his way, laid her on the polished wood surface of the table. He threw his arm out to the side sending the plate of toast and eggs flying.

:::

16 May, 1941 Potions Classroom, Dungeons, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft And Wizardry

Dorcas added Lacefly Wings to her bubbling cauldron as Cherry stirred three times anticlockwise.

"And what did she say when you asked for two free elective periods instead of one?" Cherry asked.

Professor Lin seemed agreeable, even sympathetic, Dorcas thought, as she explained that she did not want to take Domestic Arts as one of her courses in the fall. Dorcas thought she'd made a pretty compelling argument when she told the professor all of the housekeeping things she already knew without being taught in a classroom. She ended her speech by stating to her head of house that it was her wish to become a healer when she left school. Domestic Arts was not a requirement to enter that field. But Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were required in some cases to earn research grants.

"She said that she understood my arguments well, but that she was not able to change the curriculum for me. But she said she would speak to Professor Dippet on my behalf," Dorcas said, scanning her text for the next ingredient and the amount that she was supposed to add to the cauldron.

"Well," Cherry said encouragingly. "That's a step in the right direction."

Dorcas opened her mouth to respond, but stopped as a word stood out on the next page.

"Valerianella forius," Dorcas muttered under her breath.

"Excuse me?" Cherry said, straining to look at the page that had captured Dorcas's attention.

"Valerianella forius," Dorcas repeated to herself.

"I didn't get any Vallerium furious, or whatever you just said from the store cupboard. Are you sure we need it?" Cherry scanned the ingredients that she'd laid out for their Euphoria Tonic with a little bit of panic.

"Three minutes, class," Professor Slughorn announced. "I want a nice fuschia. Make sure you don't leave it on the heat for too long. It shouldn't be mauve, Mr. Atwood!"

"Quick, Dory! What else do we need to do?"

Dorcas minced the wormwood into fine pieces and sprinkled it in.

"Now one stir clockwise and remove it from the heat," Dorcas said, snapping out of her distraction.

The opaque, bubblegum pink liquid began to darken slightly and become translucent as Cherry made one revolution around the edge of the cauldron with her wooden spoon.

"Oh well done, ladies!" Slughorn said, clapping his hands as he said each syllable. "But, not surprising. Not surprising in the least!"

Cherry nudged Dorcas in the rib. "What caught your attention just then? It's not like you to be unfocused in Potions. You love this subject."

"It was an ingredient on the next page," Dorcas slid her textbook over to Cherry and pointed at the third item on the list. "I don't know why it caught my eye. But it puts me in mind of something."

"Valerianella forius," Cherry pronounced carefully.

Dorcas knew the moment Cherry pronounced the words why the name struck her as mildly familiar. Valerianella affinis was the name of a flower whose dried petals were among the number of ingredients that she and Tom had begun to collect for his Horcrux Potion. The only problem with this specific ingredient was that it had gone extinct in the nineteenth century.

It was not the only problem that they'd encountered while collecting ingredients. The Oni tusk was nearly a fiasco. Who on God's green earth would know how they could get a Basilisk feather? And on top of it all, the simple little flower whose petals they needed to pluck and dry had been extinct for about seventy-five years.

Dorcas flipped to the index while Cherry stoppered a sample of their Euphoria Tonic for evaluation. She wondered how many potions this cousin flower was on the ingredient list for.

She saw that Valerianella forius was in about a dozen potions that were listed in her basic potion-making reference. She made a note to pop into the library before dinner to look in some more comprehensive potions references for this and other flowers similar to the extinct variety.

After she helped Cherry to clean their work station, she hung back to see what Slughorn could tell her. She heard Tom's warning in the back of her mind: Be careful what you tell others. Don't give too much away. Only you and I understand why I'm doing this. No one else will want to see us succeed.

"Sir," Dorcas said, approaching the Potions Master as he finished marking off the samples on his desk. "Sorry to bother you."

"No bother at all for my best student of the second year! What can I do for you, Miss Clerey?"

"Well, sir, I wondered about extinct plants."

"Extinct plants?" The professor scrunched up his nose and looked at her. "Wouldn't Runyon-Smith in Herbology be better suited to a plant query?"

"Well, no, sir. What I want to know is, if a plant is part of an ingredient list for a potion and that plant goes extinct, is there a substitute plant? You know, an ingredient that can take its place? Or can the potion no longer be made? In essence, the potion goes extinct as well."

"Well, that is a rare thing, indeed, Miss Clerey," Slughorn said, leaning back in his chair.

Dorcas felt her heart jump into her throat. She feared she might have overplayed her hand. Would Slughorn know the exact potion and the exact plant that she was referring to?

She swallowed nervously.

"I know of a few instances where a stand in for the original ingredient has been proven successful. When Salix animae went extinct in the fifteenth century Phenmore Sprout famously grafted a black willow sapling and a Salix caprea in order to make the willow wort that many common potions use."

"And what was the effect? Did the potion weaken? Do people experience side effects."

Slughorn seemed impressed by her line of questioning. "None that I know of. I consider myself an expert brewer and I have never experienced any ill effects or dilution of a potion's efficacy because of willow wort."

"But would there be documentation of the effects of the original willow wort as compared to the modern variety? After all, no one is alive from the fifteenth century to tell us if the potions are any different."

"It is well documented!" Slughorn said, pulling a quill from an ink pot on his desk and scratching some titles down for Dorcas. "Take this to Madam Poole in the library. She'll get you sorted with the right references to get you on your way."

"Thank you, sir!" Dorcas said with a smile.

She had not expected to walk away with a list of books to get her started on her research. Some of the titles on the list bore category codes from the Restricted Section.

Dorcas bounced out of the classroom on the balls of her feet, elated that her boldness may have just yielded another hint at an ingredient from their list.

:::

7 November, 1958 Quality Quidditch Supply, Diagon Alley, London

Dorcas stepped out into the weak sunlight. Her eyes stung for a moment as they adjusted from the dark interior of Quality Quidditch Supply. The glare wasn't that bright, but her eyes seemed particularly sensitive today.

Gripping the Cleansweep Six in her hand, she smiled. Ryann would not expect this for her birthday. Dorcas thought it would be the perfect way to show that she was willing to give her blessing for Ryann to go out for the team next year.

Her smile faded with a pang of guilt. Ryann had expressed interest over the summer in trying out this school year. Then Dorcas lost the baby and didn't wake up for a month. She hated that all of that had caused Ryann to put her own dreams on hold.

She would write a long and encouraging birthday note to her oldest telling her that she had her mother's full support in whatever she wanted to do or to study and that Dorcas would not stand in her way or try to steer her path.

Although she should probably head home and spend a few more hours inventorying memories in her memory journal, she felt the delicious desire to procrastinate.

Her mind flitted back to the kitchen that morning.

The corners of her mouth turned up involuntarily at the memory of Cal sending his uneaten breakfast careening against the dining room wall as he became caught up in his passion for her. It seemed to quieten any lingering suspicions that she had about Cal's devotion to her.

But, he was continuing to work late most nights. However, she could relax on those lonely evenings at least knowing that he was healing patients and not straying into another woman's bed.

How could she have ever suspected Cal of such behavior. He was constant and faithful and he deserved to be thought of as such.

She glanced at her watch. It was half one in the afternoon. She wondered if he'd had lunch yet. Her mind wandered to the things that they might get up to in his office. After straightening their clothing and hair, they might pop out for a bite to eat, all the while sharing glances with one another like they were newly dating.

Dorcas's feet carried her from Diagon Alley to the Leaky Cauldron and out onto the pavement of Charing Cross.

:::

"Dr. Meadowes! What a pleasant surprise!" Sheldon Bonham said with a simpering smile. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

"Mr. Bonham," Dorcas answered with a smile. "It's good to see you too. I'm here to see my husband. Is he around?"

She clutched the Cleansweep, wondering why she had butterflies in her stomach. This was not some interview for a prestigious grant or a meeting for a job. She was only here to see her husband. A man she'd woken up next to for thirteen years.

She supposed she was nervous to find out if he would be pleased to see her, or if he would brush her off because the Dai Llewellyn Ward was too busy for frivolous calls from his randy housewife.

"Your husband?" Sheldon responded with a perplexed expression on his face.

"Yes, Healer Meadowes. My husband," Dorcas said slowly, with a plastic smile pinned to her face.

"You missed him. He left for home over an hour ago," Sheldon offered, a little uncomfortably.

"For home?" Dorcas knew she sounded like a simpleton in front of the head of the hospital, her boss. But she couldn't quite seem to understand what he was telling her.

Sheldon Bonham fixed her with an infuriatingly sympathetic expression. "I understand how things can get muddled," he responded. "It's going to take some time to feel shipshape and Bristol fashion, Dorcas. Perhaps you just forgot today."

"Today?" Dorcas was starting to think she really was a simpleton.

Sheldon chuckled a little at the bewilderment on her face.

"Why yes! Your husband goes home around noon every day to check on you. He is a very dependable one, that Cal!"

Dorcas ignored the flash in his mind about all of the other things that Sheldon Bonham appreciated about her husband besides his dependability.

"Yes," Dorcas said, hoping she could recover her confusion successfully enough to save face in front of the insipid man. "I am scatterbrained these days."

She inwardly cringed at the flighty sound of her voice.

"It's understandable, considering everything you've been through," Sheldon said, placing a hand on her elbow and turning her toward the hospital's entrance. "You'd better run along home, now. He's probably frantic with worry that you're not there."

"You're right. I don't know what I was thinking!"

The sinking feeling in the pit of Dorcas's stomach forced her to acknowledge what she feared was true. Cal had been using the hospital as a cover to keep secrets from her about where he was going during the late evenings (and, apparently, midday too). Now it seemed he was using her as a cover to keep the hospital in the dark as well.

Her heart raced and she felt dizzy. Her mind told her one thing: if you have to faint, don't do it in front of Sheldon Fucking Bonham. She staggered to the door and back out onto the London street. The knuckles on her right hand were white from the vice grip she used to choke the life out of Ryann's new broom.

:::

Dorcas knew that Cal was not at home waiting for her.

She couldn't face the empty and silent space for hours yet before he finally appeared between one and two o'clock in the morning.

Sitting on her bench in the park, she let the tears roll down her cheeks for an entirely different reason today. Her handbag and Ryann's Cleansweep were her only companions in the park this afternoon. The chill of the air kept other park visitors away.

Dorcas thought back to a time when she'd felt this alone in the world. Not since her mother and uncle had passed had she felt so unmoored.

Thinking about the wonderful morning she'd spent with Cal now left her confused. What was it that he needed from another woman that she wasn't giving him?

Her arms felt limp with helplessness as she struggled to think of what more she could do to keep her husband happy. She didn't feel like she had any more left to give. And if she had no more to give… And if he needed so much more from her…

Where did that leave them?

The hot tears left trails in her makeup. She was grateful that no one was around to see the disgraceful display of emotions.

"Birdie," came a low voice behind her that shattered her illusion that a private humiliation could be had at a public park.

Dorcas wiped at her face furiously.

"Tom," she said in surprise.

He looked as handsome as he ever did, dressed casually in wool trousers and a thick jumper. He didn't wear an overcoat, although the weather certainly called for one.

Dorcas resented the dashing figure he presented. By comparison, she knew that she looked shattered.

"May I?"

He gestured to the bench beside her.

Moving her handbag and Ryann's broom to the place on the other side of her, she motioned for him to sit.

"Did you find him?" Dorcas asked hopefully, blinking to clear the tears from her eyes. She reached a hand up to swipe at her chin, catching a few stray drops.

Tom handed her a handkerchief with a kind smile.

"Not yet," Tom admitted.

He was staring at her, studying her.

Dorcas didn't like the feeling of his eyes on her, surveying every detail of her discomposure.

"Then why are you here?" she asked, her voice flinty.

She searched for her own answers in his mind and met a wall of blank resistance.

"I was thinking about you and had a feeling you needed someone right about now," he said, leaning back against the bench, crossing his ankles lazily in front of him and placing his hands in his pocket.

Dorcas's eyes narrowed as she looked at him. "And you thought you were just what I needed?"

Tom shrugged. "I don't see anyone else offering to dry your tears."

Dorcas shook her head. He had some nerve.

"Why did you provoke Cal at the party?"

Tom blinked at her.

"Provoke Cal?" he repeated innocently. "He hit me, if you recall."

"You pushed his buttons on purpose, Tom. Why?"

"Because I can. Because it's fun," he replied simply.

Dorcas looked away from him. She was tempted to slap his face again. But he was taking her mind off of her troubles. And that was something.

She watched as a mother and daughter strolled by and felt a pang of longing to see her Wren.

"Don't you have one about that age?" Tom asked conversationally.

Dorcas's back straightened reflexively. She wondered if he had found a way to press into her mind after all of this time, or if he was just good at pressing her buttons too.

"Yes, Wren. She's five," Dorcas said.

"I remember her. When we met in Diagon Alley that one time. She was with you."

Dorcas nodded.

Tom scanned the empty playground.

"Where is she today?"

"School," Dorcas answered.

"And you have one older. At Hogwarts, right?"

"That's right."

Dorcas looked down at the handkerchief she held in her bare hands. She could hardly feel her fingers from the cold. Reaching into her pocket, she took out her gloves and pulled them on.

"That's who the broom is for? The oldest?"

"Yes," Dorcas said, glancing at the Cleansweep next to her on the bench.

"A gift?" Tom pried.

"Yes," Dorcas answered. "For her birthday."

"When is her birthday?"

Dorcas started to feel as if the questions were less than casual. But she endeavored to keep her tone even and answer the questions politely. She knew that Tom would be able to tell if her mood changed. She didn't know why this conversation felt so dangerous all of a sudden, but she became tense inside like a deer who'd caught a threatening scent as the wind shifted.

This was why he'd provoked Cal.

"The tenth."

Dorcas folded the handkerchief neatly in her lap and offered it back to Tom. He placed it in his pocket, moving closer to Dorcas as he did.

"She'll be thirteen. I remember you were pregnant with her at school," Tom confirmed.

I'll just bet you do, Dorcas thought. She wondered why he didn't just come right out and ask if Ryann was his. It didn't make a spot of difference if he suspected he was her father. He would never know her. Dorcas would never allow it.

"Yep. A lot of people remember," Dorcas replied, a hard edge creeping into her voice at remembering the difficult choices she'd had to make and the humiliation she'd had to bear. All of it without his support.

There was a pause that Dorcas wanted to fill with so many different accusations and insults. It was finally broken by Tom.

"What's her name?"

Dorcas looked at the swings in the distance swaying in the cool breeze. She shook her head slightly.

"Ryann," Dorcas responded. "Ryann Mary."

"That's unconventional," Tom said. "I get the Mary part. Your mother, right?"

Dorcas sighed. "Ryann was Cal's brother's middle name. Mary for my mother. It's also his mother's middle name."

"My grandmother," Tom said.

This surprised Dorcas. As if he came into the naming of her child in any capacity!

"I suppose. You never seemed to consider them family in all the time I knew you."

"No," Tom replied simply.

"Who is this man that I'm supposed to be hunting down for you?" he redirected.

"Not hunting down. Just...finding his whereabouts. I don't want you to do anything to him. I just want an address."

"Who is he?"

Dorcas kept her eyes on the swaying swings.

"Birdie?"

Silence.

"If you can't find him, just say so," Dorcas answered with gritted teeth. She felt tears spring into her eyes and became angry at her own fragile emotions.

"He's the one who poisoned you and killed your son."

Dorcas nodded and ducked her head, clasping her hands together tightly to distract herself from the ache in her chest by twisting her fingers painfully.

Tom placed a hand gently over her hands before pulling her into a tight embrace.

It felt so good to be comforted that Dorcas felt herself crying harder. And this felt like the ultimate betrayal of Cal which made her sob all the more.

She felt herself reflexively reach up and cling to him, taking fistfulls of his jumper in her hands as she buried her face in his neck. It was surprising to her how familiar he felt to her with his arms wrapped around her after all of this time apart.

"I'll find him, Birdie. He'll pay for what he did. You'll make him pay."

Dorcas nodded as she wept into his collar. She needed to believe that what he said was true. She didn't have any other hope of making it through this.

Without Stephen Muybridge dead, there was no other side to make it through to.

"And I will help you," Tom vowed.

:::

16 May, 1941 Fourth Floor Corridor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Dorcas had her head buried in sheafs of notes that she'd spent the evening compiling on her research into grafting the qualities that you would need to substitute for an extinct plant.

Thanks to Slughorn's list, she was able to look through three Restricted Section books and found out that the active ingredient in dried Valerianella affinis petals had been simulated in the grafted bulb of an Ornithogalum and an Albuca bracteata stalk. In short, the modern substitute for Valerianella affinis was a common Star of Bethlehem.

"Clerey! Sorry!" Cal Meadowes said distractedly as he collided with her in the corridor.

Dorcas's notes when flying and she shrieked in panic. She threw her school bag down and bent to retrieve her scattered papers hurriedly so as not to attract attention to their contents. Not that a third year student would recognize any of the notes she was making on possibly the most advanced potion anyone's ever attempted under the age of twenty. But she also didn't want to have to explain any of it.

She muttered her own quick apology as she clutched the papers to her chest and stood.

"I was reading a letter and I didn't see you there," Cal said, lifting her bag onto his shoulder.

"From your mum or your brother?" Dorcas asked pleasantly. She hadn't spoken to Cal much since he'd been kind enough to help her back to the school after she was injured at the circus in Hogsmeade. She really was a poor friend.

His face seemed to flinch when she mentioned his brother, causing Dorcas to feel a sense of dread.

"Oh no!" she gasped. "Has anything happened?"

"He's missing," Cal said in a hollow tone.

Dorcas nodded, eager for details.

"His plane was part of a squadron that flew over Dresden a week ago," Cal explained.

"Dresden?" Dorcas said with wide eyes. A moment later, she regretted her transparent worry as it seemed to confirm Cal's.

He swallowed hard and nodded.

"But did anyone see his plane go down? Missing is not dead, Cal," she encouraged.

"My mother doesn't know anything more. She waited three days to tell me, hoping she'd have more hope to give. But nothing."

"Oh, Cal!" Dorcas said, pulling him into a tight hug. "I'm sorry for your worry. But he could be absolutely fine. Maybe he's landed somewhere and is just carefully finding his way back."

She heard of countless stories about RAF pilots being ferried out of occupied France by the Resistance. Maybe this is what had happened to Cal's brother.

Cal's hands wrapped around her waist as she stood on her tiptoes with her arms around his neck.

Her skirt became caught in a strong breeze and she felt it fly up. She rushed to secure it with one hand as Cal was slow to release her.

She heard sniggering and knew from the thoughts she'd heard that it was not a naturally created gust that had caught her skirt.

"Nice knickers, Clerey," one of the boys jeered. Dorcas knew him only as a player on the Slytherin Quidditch team. She thought he might have been a Beater.

"Pink's a nice color on you!" Wes Rookwood, a Slytherin in her year added.

Dorcas felt Cal react when his arms stiffened around her. He released her and dropped her bag back to the floor. In the same instant, he pulled his wand from his pocket, raising it the moment he turned to face the boys behind him.

The Slytherin Quidditch player raised his wand that he'd already drawn. Dorcas guessed that he was the pervert that conjured the gust.

"Expelliarmus!" Cal said before the Slytherin could open his mouth.

Cal caught the wand and placed it in his pocket from where he'd just drawn his own.

"It was just a draft," Wes explained as he fumbled for his own wand as Cal advanced on him.

The Quidditch player's leering smile slowly faded from his face.

"Did you conjure it? Or did you?" Cal said, pointing his wand first at Wes and then at the Beater.

"The castle's old and drafty," the Beater responded with a smirk.

Apparently he didn't believe that Cal would do anything. Dorcas was afraid that he would.

"That's a lie," Cal said dismissively in a calm voice. "You owe her an apology."

"I'm not apologizing," the Beater replied, crossing his arms as if to communicate his resistance.

"Sorry, Dorcas," Wes offered. Dorcas really thought he might be contrite.

She shook her head as if to say it was nothing really. She was nervous about what Cal planned to do if the Slytherin Beater chose to defy him.

"Cal," she said in a shaky voice. "It's fine. They're sorry."

Cal stood about six inches taller than the Beater. But the Beater did not seem willing to give any ground.

"I'm not apologizing to that whore," the Beater said.

Dorcas tensed. Wes seemed to step away from the Beater slightly.

Cal opened his mouth to speak. His wand was inches from the other student's face. Then someone behind Dorcas seemed to catch Cal's eye. Dorcas was afraid that when she turned around, it would be a teacher coming to break up the standoff.

Dorcas would feel so guilty that Cal was in trouble because of her. She would also be mortified as the reason for fighting was explained.

But it wasn't a teacher that Dorcas saw standing behind her.

"Anything you care to say in defense of your girlfriend?" Cal asked with an incredulous glare at Tom.

How long had he been standing there?

She found the answer immediately in his mind. He'd seen Dorcas embrace Cal. She could read in the enraged shades of his mind that he agreed with the Slytherin Beater's categorization of Dorcas in that moment. She was a whore.

"No?" Cal asked Tom. "Well, I have plenty to say about it."

"Cal," Dorcas cried out as he wound up his fist and caught the Slytherin on the cheekbone.

The dazed Beater seemed to spin a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, blood flying in Wes's direction.

Dorcas looked to Tom, pleading with him silently to help her break this up.

He turned away from her with a cold and dispassionate glance, descending the stairs and leaving her to break up the fight on her own.

Wes was backing away as the two older boys tussled. At least Cal had disarmed the Beater, so there was no threat of magic being used. But fists were damaging enough.

"Wes," Dorcas cried. "Help me!"

A crowd was beginning to gather around the spectacle and Dorcas felt powerless to stop it. What spell could she use to separate them? Her mind went blank and she could only think to use her hands to pull the two apart.

She flew at the two boys whose fists were wailing at one another and she pulled at Cal's shoulder.

"Dorcas, don't," Wes finally said, tugging at her arm to pull her away.

The Beater's fist flailed, trying to land a punch on Cal's face, but connected with the side of Dorcas's mouth as she bent to stop Cal.

Dorcas and Wes both toppled backward with the impact of the punch.

Out of the crowd, Dorcas heard Jonas's voice.

"Don't hit my cousin," he roared and flew at Wes.

Dorcas stood looking at the two pairs of boys wrestling on the ground. She wound her fingers into her hair and pulled in frustration.

Then she remembered a spell that could break this up without injuring anyone.

She pulled her wand from her pocket and opened her mouth to speak the spell. The split in her lip smarted with the motion.

"Prohibere Partitus!" came a booming voice from behind her.

Dorcas turned to see Professor Dippet alighting on the last step to the landing. The sea of onlookers, which had grown since Dorcas had surveyed it earlier for any sign of an ally to help her, parted for the headmaster. His wand lowered once he was satisfied that the two pairs were no longer locked in physical combat.

Cal and Jonas got to their feet first. Wes stood soon after. And, dramatically, the Slytherin Beater was the last to make it to his feet, clutching his ribs.

"To my office, the four of you," Dippet commanded.

Cal looked at Dorcas with a strange expression. His thoughts were apologetic, fixated mostly on the trickle of blood that oozed from her split lip.

She touched it reflexively, avoiding the wince that she would have made if his eyes had not been on her. She did not want him to feel bad. She should have stayed back.

As the four boys were marched off down the corridor by Dippet, Dorcas bent to pick up her school bag and discarded notes and found the letter from Cal's mum among them. She placed all of the papers in her pocket and headed to her dormitory. She wanted to hide under the counterpane of her bed until school ended next month.

:::

7 November, 1958 Watermead, Aylesbury

Dorcas wore a pair of Cal's pajama bottoms which were too large for her. She threw on a thick cable knit jumper and warm socks.

When she caught her reflection in the mirror of her bedroom, she thought that this was what giving up looked like.

She made herself a cup of coffee and padded into her office.

It was time to redouble her efforts on the memory journal.

She'd made a rule for herself.

Journal ten memories a day. Pick four that seemed the most promising for alteration and pull them for the Pensieve. If none looked promising. The rule was to pull four at random.

She was a little more than halfway through inventorying her first year spent at Hogwarts. Trying hard not to linger too much on memories of her mother and uncle out of sentimental reminiscence, she focused on her time at school. That was, after all, where she was likely to encounter the magic that had been injuring her brain for more than a decade.

The last memory on her list from this evening's session was one she was dreading to confront. But she knew she had to look at it because of the nature of the remembrance.

It was midwinter and she'd injured herself badly when she'd fallen down the Owlery steps.

Dorcas didn't want to relive broken bones and concussions, but she couldn't avoid unpleasant memories. They could be just as likely as pleasant ones to have been altered by a memory charm.

Taking a fortifying breath, Dorcas placed her wand against her temple and pulled the memory's silvery thread from her mind.

:::

24 February, 1940 Owlery, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Dorcas was in a hurry to post a letter. She couldn't say why the need was so urgent. She did not know why it had to be posted at night. She didn't know who she was sending the letter to.

None of these gaps in understanding stopped her from taking the steps to the Owlery two at a time. Her lungs protested in the cold, but she rushed on.

Adult Dorcas wanted to cry out to her twelve-year-old self to slow down. She felt protective of this little Dorcas as if she were watching Ryann or Wren.

She belatedly registered the patch of ice on the topmost steps to the landing, her foot was already sailing behind her.

She smacked the last step of the landing with her mouth, the copper taste of blood alerted her to that injury first. But as she shifted to her knees, trying to pull herself up to a standing position once more, her arm protested loudly at the effort. She tried to flex her fingers on her right hand, but they would not cooperate without an unbearable grinding of bone on bone when her tendons pulled.

Adult Dorcas carefully inventoried her surroundings as she did on countless occasions when venturing into her patients' memories. This was a surreal experience, being both the patient and the physician at the same moment.

Losing her footing a second time caused her to tumble backward and land face up and prostrate upon the stone. Her vision swam and tiny pricks of light danced before her before the blackness descended on her.

Dorcas turned from her unconscious self on the landing to look at the walls, the light, to note the sounds. And it was easy to detect the change. She was not dealing with a master memory charm caster here.

As she glanced back up the steps that she'd taken so precariously and then fallen down, she noticed that the ice was gone. The ice was gone because the memory charm caster had forgotten to include the detail in the memory.

Child Dorcas woke later after an unknown amount of time had passed. Her fingers and toes were numb from the cold and her head felt as if it would split open. Managing to get to her hands and knees, she used the wall to brace her as she stood.

:::

7 November, 1958 Watermead, Aylesbury

Dorcas pulled herself up and out of the memory.

"Expecto Patronum!" she said, her voice ringing in her vacant office.

A little silvery nightingale erupted from the end of her wand and flitted in front of her face expectantly.

"I know it's late. But does your offer of help still stand? I need you."

Dorcas opened her office window and watched as the silvery Patronus carried her message on diligent wings.

She finally felt as if a breakthrough was coming.